Particleboard is a classic wood-based panel, made from high quality particles of wood / bagasse. It is a low  density board with density range from 650 kgs to 750 kgs per cubic meter.Particleboard Plants are specially designed to produce an effective alternative for wood-based panel products.

Industries that use Particleboard include construction and packaging. High quality Particleboard has the strength, durability & screw-holding capacity of near MDF, which makes it suitable for widespread use in the furniture industry such as bedroom units, fitted kitchens, shelves & tables. It is also used in household electrical appliances, laminate flooring, cabinets & floor underlayment. Particleboard has good mechanical performance of fine, neat & smooth finish. It meets the growing demand amongst consumers & manufacturers alike for environmentally  friendly alternatives.

Particleboard comes in 6 mm to 30 mm thickness & in the density range of 650  750 kg/m3. Average bulk density is 700 kg/m3 on the average thickness of 18mm.

India has 19% of its land by way of forests. A wide variety of trees are grown here, due to the availability of abundant solar energy. Hence a number of Particleboard Plants can be set up in various parts of the Country to convert these wood wastes into wealth. Since Particleboard replaces wood & plywood, the pressure on virgin forests are reduced & a new social forestry can be developed near the Particleboard Factory to meet the future wood requirements.

PARTICLEBOARD FROM BAGASSE -

There are 450 Sugar factories in India. A 2,500 TCD Sugar Plant generates 1,20,000 tons of bagasse with 50% moisture, in 160 days of working. Much of this bagasse is burnt to fuel the boiler. Of late, the surplus is used for power generation. Some sugar factories sell surplus bagasse to the nearby paper factories.

Bagasse is a valuable cellulose, which deserves better value-addition than simple burning. The notional price of bagasse is Rs. 500/- per ton, which may increase to Rs. 1,000/- per ton on co-generation. If the same is converted into Particleboard, the price of the board will be Rs. 10,000  15,000 per ton.

Bagasse contains 30% pith, which is not suitable for making Particleboard. The same can be used for the Boiler, along with baled sugarcane trash in place of bagasse. It is possible to bale 80,000 tons of trash by a 2,500 TCD Sugar Factory in 160 days of working. With the de-pithed bagasse of 46,000 tons (with 50% moisture),a Particleboard production line of 30,000 m3/year can be run throughout the year.

GLOBAL MARKET SURVEY OF PARTICLEBOARD 

World Particleboard lines 

Key Areas

No. of Production Lines

Capacity in

1000 m3

Average mill Capacity in m3

U.S.

54

10,726

1,99,000

Canada

17

3,797

2,23,000

Mexico

10

937

94,000

Europe

251

43,563

1,74,000

Rest
of the world

-
China

263

5,740

22,000

- North East

Asia

26

2,624

1,101,000

-South EastAsia

67

5,635

84,000

-
Other Asia *

35

2,127

61,000

-Latin/
south

America

53

5,157

97,000

-
Africa

21

1227

58,000

-
Australasia

18

1130

63,000

Totals

815

82,663

World Average

1,01,000 m3

*
Including India.

In China, around 200 mills were built by using Chinese Plant & Equipments, with total capacities of 3 million m3.In the rest of Asia, the largest number of mills are found in Pakistan, Iran & India, but the Indian total capacity is insignificant. However, discussions with some of the mills suggest that demand for Particle Board is high & the Indian Sugar Industry could provide sufficient bagasse for more than 2 million m3 of future capacity.

The Particleboard capacities in Europe, country-wise are given below 

No. of lines

Estimated
Capacity in 1000 m3

Average Plant
size in m3

Europe (EUmember countries)

Austria

12

2427

2,02,000

Belgium

15

3360

2,24,000

Denmark

1

350

3,50,000

Finland

3

650

2,17,000

France

19

4496

2,37,000

Germany

28

8465

3,02,000

Greece

8

560

70,000

Ireland

1

140

1,40,000

Italy

27

4500

1,67,000

Portugal

4

1010

2,52,000

Spain

18

2945

1,64,000

Sweden

6

810

1,35,000

U.K.

12

2945

2,45,000

Europe (Outside EU)

Czech
Republic

3

840

2,80,000

Estonia

2

150

75,000

Lithuania

2

180

90,000

Latvia

2

200

1,00,000

Norway

5

475

95,000

Slovenia

3

200

67,000

Slovakia

2

380

1,90,000

Switzerland

2

600

3,00,000

Turkey

27

1800

67,000

Poland

9

2240

2,49,000

Hungary

2

440

2,20,000

Romania

9

900

1,00,000

Russia

29

2500

86,000

Total

251

43563

European average

1,74,000 m3

As per the statistics available, there are 14 Pre-laminated/Plain Particle Board manufacturers in India, with a built-up capacity of around 3,00,000 m3 as under-

Plain
Pre-laminated Particleboard plants in India 

1.

Aurobindo,Nagpur

2.

Bakelite
Hylam, Chandrapur

3.

Bharat
Boards, Itarsi

4.

Daulatt SSK, Halkarni

5.

Eco-board Ltd., Pune

6.

Leo Laminates,
Hyderabad

7.

Mysore Chipboards,
Mysore

8.

Novopan , Hyderabad

9.

Nuboards, Moradabad

10.

Cosmic Crafts,
Meghalaya

11.

Patil Boards, Surat

12.

Shivdhan Industries,
Nagpur

13.

Sri Satpada Tapi
Parivar SSK, Dhule

14.

Wilson Boards, Kolhapur

INDIAN MARKET POTENTIAL FOR PARTICLEBOARD 

The Working Paper by FAO estimated the demand for industrial round wood in India (other than fuel wood) as under 

As per FAO, the requirement of sawnwood by 2005 will be around 50 million cubic meters, which is equal to Rs. 60,000 crores in monetary terms. As against this, the availability of sawnwood in India is only 47 million cubic meters & some quantity is imported, draining valuable foreign exchange.

Bulk of the industrial round wood in India is utilized by the saw milling industry, consisting of more than 23,000 units. It is estimated that each sawmill will generate 100  120 tons of sawdust & wood cuttings per year on an average and make available totally 2.5 million tons of wood wastes, which can provide necessary raw material for more than 50 new Particleboard Plants in India.

The projected demand for Particleboard by 2005 is 4,90,000 cubic meters, whereas the combined Capacity of the Plants operating in India is only3,00,000 cubic meters. The shortage is covered by Particleboard imports at high prices.

Particleboard production line complete with more than 100 individual equipments lined up for continuous production, with a capacity of 30,000 m3/year (21,000 tons), 50,000 m3/year (35,000 tons) or 80,000 m3/year (56,000 tons)

There is a shortage of wood logs in all parts of the world today. With the new engineering technology, the Particleboard Plants can take advantage of lower value raw materials like wood wastes & cuttings, small sized juvenile wood and sugarcane bagasse to produce high quality Boards.

More & more composite panels are used to replace plywood for making furniture, cabinets & specialty products. As the pressure on worldwide supplies of wood increases, there is greater scope for cost-efficient particleboard systems to make wood substitutes.